Preventive maintenance is extremely important for all your machines and components especially linear actuators. It helps reduce downtime associated with reactive maintenance. Due to lower productivity rates associated with downtime, most manufacturers consider reactive maintenance to be extremely expensive.
Preventive maintenance is a win-win situation. Here, you can increase the productivity of components, check them for wear and tear, and at the same time, the downtime associated with it is far lower. The maintenance checks can be pre-planned, coinciding with employee holidays, or lower production hours.
Importance of Preventive Maintenance for Linear Actuators
When we consider motion control equipment, preventive maintenance becomes even more important. These equipment feature complex and intricate movements and components, which if damaged, could result in expensive repairs. Actuators used to control motion are liable to higher chances of failure and wear. Reactive maintenance when performed could be extreme and cause more damage than preventive maintenance. When a component fails, it may also cause damage to other components or the mechanism as a whole. This results in higher downtime and increased expenses to replace or repair the damaged parts.
Importance of Lubrication in Preventive Maintenance
Most manufacturers emphasize on the importance of proper lubrication. This is the most important step of conducting preventive maintenance. This helps in increasing the life of various components like nuts and bolts. This can reduce equipment failure by a huge margin. Lubrication is responsible for separating the various components of a machine. This helps minimize wear and tear by decreasing friction.
You must also ensure that the right type of lubricant is used. Depending on the construction of the actuator, the type of lubrication used will vary. Careful consideration will also have to be given to the application requirements. Only a trained technician should perform these duties because overfilling of the lubricant can result in altered mechanical movements. The temperature, consistency, cleanliness, and moisture capacity should be considered.
Referring to the product manual is a healthy practice to ensure that the product is being serviced in the right manner. Developing and maintaining standards for the maintenance and lubrication processes along with the establishing maintenance intervals for upkeep of every component, will ensure consistent results and keep your components from harm.
Linear actuators maintenance needs when it used in machinery perform critical functions. It is vital that their functioning isn’t impeded by lack of maintenance. Preventive maintenance is extremely beneficial to increase the life of the product as well as the productivity of your unit in the long run.